Eclipse Of The Tiger
by AnimeOtaku4444
Summary: Phoenix has spent her whole life dreaming of fantastical creatures which could take her away from her depressing, lonely life. When she finds out they're real, she may just get more than anybody bargained for...
1. Blonde Trouble

Phoenix walked with confidence, like she owned that alley, because she'd heard that muggers were less likely to target such people, but inside she was nervous. It didn't happen often, but occasionally she had to work so late at the hospital that she missed the last bus home, and the only vehicle she owned, the truck she'd inherited from her father, was being rented out to a construction company, because it had been modified for construction jobs. Her father had been a site manager.

Rarely did those two events occur simultaneously and force her to walk home, but it had happened before. She hadn't been mugged yet, but every time it happened she felt like she was pushing her luck. She couldn't even call a friend, because it was halfway between midnight and dawn. They'd either be out partying, since it was the weekend, or working nightshifts for the overtime. She was almost out of the alley, and relief started seeping into her chest, but then the light went out.

Well, to be more precise, it was blocked. There was the tallest man she'd ever seen standing at the end of the alleyway, with several men behind him. Turning, she saw that they'd blocked the other side too. There was something strange about them. They were all blonde and exceedingly handsome. They could've been models. Phoenix was terrified now.

They all had a cruel predatory look on their faces, like a cat with a mouse, she was very much outnumbered, and they'd trapped her. She hid her fear carefully, and did as her father had always taught her. She walked up to the tallest, most muscled guy there, until they were virtually nose to nose, and sneered at him. "Get out of my way." The guy just smirked at her.

She brought her knee up as hard and fast as she could, but just before it could make contact with his 'sensitive area', his left hand shot out and stopped it, then in a move so fast that it was just a blur for Phoenix, he grabbed her, spun her around so she had her back to him, and whispered in her ear, "That might work with humans sweetie, but I'm sorry to say that I'm the big bad wolf." "Oh yeah? Well, if you recall, that asshole got killed by the lumberjack, and Little Red Riding Hood got away."

The man threw his head back and laughed loudly, as though he didn't care if he was drawing attention. "You've got a smart mouth. I'm going to enjoy shutting you up for good. Boys, why don't you show her what she's dealing with here?" The blonde men at the other end of the alley blurred out of focus and reappeared about a meter away. They were all grinning, clearly showing off the pair of fangs each of them had. One of them held a metal pipe. He bent it into a pretzel.

Phoenix knew her eyes had betrayed her surprise. "What are you?" "I'm sure you've heard of us. We're vampires. At least, that's what the humans call us. Actually, we're called Daemons, and it's not your blood we're interested in, although that's rather tasty too. We eat souls, and tonight yours is dinner." What happened next took all of them by surprise. Phoenix threw up her arms and cheered.

"Woo hoo! I knew it was real! I knew they existed! I mean, all those myths and legends had to come from somewhere, right? What else is real? Are there werewolves? How about unicorns?" The Daemons blinked and looked to their leader, confused. The tall Daemon just shook his head. "Humans. I will never understand your kind. Oh well. Supper time, boys." With that he opened his mouth wide and began to lower his teeth to her neck.


	2. A Torn Up Saviour

Something made him pause, and look up and behind him. "Well well well, what a welcome surprise. Look boys, it's a feast." A man staggered into the alley. He was wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, he didn't even have a belt, and there was a strange-looking collar around his throat. He looked Japanese, with waist-length silky black hair, except that he had dark blue eyes. It was clear that he'd been badly beaten very recently. "Little girl, it just so happens that werewolves do exist. Also, they're powerful magicians, and we absorb their powers when we eat them. That's why this little cub is going to make a very yummy treat. See that collar? It seals his magic. He must've been kicked out of his pack. He won't even be able to fight us. It must be our lucky night, right boys?"

The Daemon had turned to face the werewolf, turning Phoenix too. She saw the man and felt several things at once. She felt worried about him, because she didn't want him in his damaged state to fall victim to the blonde vampires as well, she felt turned on because he was exactly her type of sexy, but most of all she felt disappointed, because he wouldn't be able to rescue her. She wasn't strong enough to fight back, but she wasn't going to give the Daemons the satisfaction of seeing her terrified either. "Well, do your worst. I'm not afraid of dying." The Daemon holding her raised an eyebrow and smirked knowingly at his men. That's why he didn't see what the man behind him was doing.

Zaraki ached all over, and he was exhausted. He'd been walking for days, just waiting for his uncle's hunters to find him and finish him off. He didn't care anymore. He was going to join his father soon, and there was nothing in this world for him anymore. He heard Daemons in an alley. He didn't want to get his soul eaten, he'd never see his father again if that happened, but he couldn't ignore them either. There was nothing in existence he hated more than Daemons. He staggered into the alley and realised that it had been a bad idea after all. There were far too many of them. Then he saw the woman their leader was holding. She looked nothing like Yachiru, but her hair was almost the exact same shade of red his sister's had been.

It was like déjà vu, seeing a red-headed woman surrounded by Daemons. He had been nothing more than a cub that night, and he hadn't been able to save his sister, the girl who'd always protected him. He wasn't going to let them kill this woman too. He didn't think his heart could bare to see that happen again, while he watched just as helpless as before. He let his rage build up, then grabbed the hated collar with both hands. It tried to constrict, and shocked him painfully, but he didn't feel it. With his powerful fury turning his muscles to iron, the collar slowly stretched, but it refused to break. Then the woman said the exact same thing his sister had. "I'm not afraid of dying." The collar snapped and fell away in pieces. He started running at the blondes, and as he did so, he shifted into his base form.

The leader's face went from smirk to dazed surprise in an instant, for just a moment, then he turned to dust. Phoenix was freed, but she didn't move from the spot. She couldn't believe her eyes. She hadn't seen the man remove the collar, but when she looked for them she spotted the pieces of it lying discarded on the floor. She'd never seen a cat so big before, not even at the zoo. He was roughly a one and a quarter times the size of the fully grown male tiger she loved watching at the zoo. He didn't have the coat of a tiger either. He was black, with blue-black tiger markings. It was like watching a demon, or a phantom cross between a panther, a tiger, and maybe a black bear.

The creature snarled and fought, and every Daemon that got near him, or he got near to, turned almost instantly to dust, but not before the alley was painted with their blood. It was over in less than a minute. The creature stood in the alley. It was panting heavily. It was only then that she saw how it favoured one of its legs, as though it was badly sprained, and she remembered the way he'd half limped as a man. He was covered in wet patches she could only assume were blood, but she wasn't sure how much of it was his, and how much of it was Daemon. He looked at her, and the look in his eyes took her breath away. It wasn't predatory, aggressive or angry. It was the saddest look she'd ever seen. It only lasted a few seconds before the animal passed out with a loud thump. That put her on the spot a little. She couldn't stay with him, more Daemons could come along, and there'd be nobody to dust them a second time, but she couldn't leave him either.

The leader had said that weres were a tasty treat for their kind. If even one found him like this, it would be the end for him, and he'd just saved not just her life, but her soul. How could she abandon him now? She couldn't call for help either. He was a gargantuan cat, but he looked nothing like any real, normal zoo animal. At best, calling someone would get him shot, locked in a zoo, or locked in a secret government basement to be experimented on for the rest of his life. She thought about it carefully, then did the only thing she could think of. She called the man she'd rented her truck to. He was a regular, and mostly worked night shifts. He wouldn't mind the late hour, and at this point, she honestly didn't care if he did.


	3. BackRoom First Aid

Twenty minutes later, her truck and another, older truck parked on the side of the street a few meters from the alley. Mike got out, chatted with her for a bit, then got in the other truck, next to his foreman. As soon as they'd left, she got in her truck, and backed it up so that the bumper was just inside the entrance of the alley, then pushed the added buttons on her consol to extend a ramp and tilt the bed up to a twenty degree angle. Next, she dug the huge heavy chain from under the seat, where it lived, and got out the truck.

She climbed into the back, and attached the chain to the big clip-hook on the end of her winch's line. The winch was attached half to the truck's roof, and half to the back of the cab. It was just high enough that the tilted bed brushed the underside of the supports holding the winch up. She grabbed the other end of the heavy chain and walked down the bed, down the ramp, and over to the were-creature. She wrapped the chain around him as carefully as she could, before using the hook on the end to secure the chain in place.

She climbed back into the truck, and turned the winch on. It protested a little. It was supposed to be able to handle two tons, but that didn't mean it enjoyed being tested. The animal moved slowly along the ground, up the ramp, and onto the bed. Once it was all the way on, Phoenix pushed the button to lower the bed back to level and withdraw the ramp, and thanked her lucky stars that he hadn't slipped out of the chains much. She got out again, and took the chain off. She stowed it back under the seat, before starting the engine and driving the last few blocks home.

She backed the truck right up to the double-garage's door, and felt glad that her neighbours would all be asleep for a few more hours, and that she had high hedges. She went inside, and found the old blow-up mattresses she kept in a cupboard under the stairs, and set them up in the garage. They were a double, a King-sized, and a single that had come free with the set. She put the single back in the cupboard. She plugged in the little machine that came with them and used it to pump them up. Next she lay two old ratty blankets down on the king-sized, made up her own bed, the double, and gathered more old blankets, a bucket of steaming water, and her medical kit.

When the garage was prepped and ready, she lowered the ramp and tilted the bed again. It took a little pushing and puffing, but the animal slowly started to slide down the bed and ramp, and onto the king-sized mattress. It looked like it wanted to burst from the pressure, but she remembered that in the infomercial on television, the promoters had driven a ten-ton crane over the mattress to prove how sturdy it was. A two-ton cat wouldn't be enough to break it. Suddenly she was glad she'd paid the exorbitant amount the better quality mattresses had cost. When the cat was off the truck she lowered the bed and withdrew the ramp a final time before parking her truck outside in the driveway. It would seem strange to her neighbours, but there wasn't enough room in the garage for the giant cat, her, and the truck.

She worked until a few hours after dawn, washing the dried blood from the cat's coat and bandaging any wounds she was able to. One scratch on his back looked deep enough to require stitches, so she carefully shaved the wound, prayed he'd forgive her for it, and stitched the wound. Technically nurses weren't supposed to stitch wounds, but she'd been taught how to by a doctor at the government hospital she worked at, so she'd be more useful during emergency situations. While the doctors worked to save the lives of the fifteen people from the weekend's highway pile-up, she could stitch little Johnny's leg where he'd fallen on something sharp. She lightly splinted the sprained back leg as well, and pinned an old hand-towel around it. Inside the hand-towel were several ice cubes. When she'd done all that she could do, she took off her clothes and climbed exhausted into her own make-shift bed.


	4. Waking Up On Clarckson Avenue

The cat didn't wake up the next day, or the next. She used those days to get stocked up on food. She could imagine an animal that size being hungry when it woke up, and she didn't want him picturing a giant steak when he looked at her. She wasn't sure what he'd eat, being a were, so she bought a couple of whole sheep from the butcher, as well as loads of human food. It made a dent in her savings, but it was the least she could do for the man who'd protected her when he was already in such bad shape. She was just glad she had room in her freezer for the sheep. It was an old model, with the lid on the top, and coated in something like plastic to make it seem like one of those old cheap counter-tops.

On the third morning, she was stretching and yawning when she noticed that one of the animal's eyes was open. He was watching her. She froze. She'd been thinking about what to do when he woke up. She wasn't sure how human his mind was when he was in animal form. The legends said weres had no control over themselves whilst animals, but she'd already learnt that only a tiny portion of the legends were right. The trouble was, she didn't know which portions. She decided that if he was more animal than human, she wasn't going to be able to get away in time anyway, so she'd just have to take a chance and hope he was safe.

"Hello. I'm Phoenix, the woman you rescued. You're safe, you're in my house. Do you remember me?" The tiger closed its eye and huffed. Then, suddenly, it wasn't a tiger anymore. It was a naked man. It was the same gorgeous man from before. Phoenix looked away, blushing, while he pulled his old blanket around his hips. He opened his eyes and tried to smile, but he was clearly still in pain. "I remember you, sort of. My memory is a little fuzzy at the moment. You don't need to be afraid of me when I'm in animal form; I promise I won't hurt you. It's still me inside, I just look different. Where is this place?"

She smiled at him. "This is my home, on Clarkson Avenue. We're in the garage. It wasn't easy getting you here. I hope the winch and the chain didn't break anything. I couldn't get it around you properly because I couldn't lift you. I could barely lift one of your paws. You're amazing." "Don't worry, I'll be fine. My kind heals much faster than humans." Zaraki couldn't understand it. "Why are you helping me? Why aren't you more afraid of me?"

"You protected me from those Daemon things. You wouldn't have done that if you were a bad person, or if you wanted to hurt me. If you were going to hurt me, you would've done it before. Why on Earth would I be afraid of someone who protected me? That makes no sense." "But you know what I am." "I have no idea what you are, and I couldn't care less. You can turn into a giant cat and dust Daemons, but I have no idea what that makes you, other than some type of were."

Just then his stomach gave a growl which would've put a tiger to shame. "Hungry?" "A little." "I wasn't sure what you eat, so I got loads of raw meat, as well as loads of human food. Which do you prefer?" "I'd like the human food, please. I'll eat the meat too, if it's cooked." "Alright. I'm not sure how to cook whole sheep, but I'll figure something out." "I could show you how to roast them on a spit." "I'd appreciate that." "You tended my wounds too, didn't you?" The sudden change of topic surprised her, but she answered him. "Yes, I did everything I could. I'm a nurse. I hope you don't mind, I had to shave some of the fur on your back. You needed stitches." "That's alright; it'll be there again the next time I transform. I'm sorry, I need to rest some more. Being in this form is tiring for me." "That's fine. I'll go get the food ready for you."


End file.
